Now for the real question: is it actually IRC or just an in-game IRC-like interface?
The greatest hacking game of all time, Uplink, has an actual IRC client that you can buy and install on your in-game systems.
IRC pops up a lot in less obvious places too. The in-game chat in Warframe is IRC, but it handles all the server and channel connecting, locking you out of connecting to arbitrary servers.
Is that just some hand-drawn 2D cards? Looks good.
You should be careful about how you construct the cutscenes. Slow pans that can't be individually skipped get old fast.